Focus: Gun control — Saturday, July 28, 2012

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July 27, 2012
: Updated: July 27, 2012 3:42pm

FILE - In this Sunday, July 22, 2012 file photo, family members of the victims of the Century 16 theater shooting remember their loved ones during a vigil at the Aurora Municipal Center campus in Aurora, Colo. With their anger and tears stirred by the sight of James Holmes in a courtroom with red hair and glassy eyes, the families of those killed in the Colorado theater massacre now must go home to plan their final goodbyes.

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The tragedy in Colorado once again raises the issue of gun control. The troubled young man who massacred the people in the theater did most of the damage with an assault rifle. A man who reportedly saw the accused assassin fitting a scope on the rifle in a gun store said that the man didn't “look like” someone who should be buying such a weapon. My question is, looks aside, why should anyone be allowed to buy such a weapon?

There was a ban on such weapons, a ban President Obama has not attempted to renew, despite the NRA-inspired hysteria that he planned to take our guns away. In fact, the president has been a real friend of the NRA. Not once has he taken any action in the area of gun control.

In his remarks about the tragedy, he didn't even use the word “gun.” It's as if the president is afraid of the NRA. No wonder candidates running for office in Texas want us to know they are endorsed by the NRA. If this letter is printed, I've just killed any chances I might have to be elected to any public office — local, city, state or even dog catcher!

The column by Mr. Pimentel was not unexpected. For a few weeks, there will be a clamor from many sources to repeal the Second Amendment and much damnation on the NRA. Mr. Pimentel ignores the fact that the guns, by themselves, did not kill anyone. It was a deranged young man who committed the crime. He could have used a few sticks of dynamite or some everyday products to construct a bomb, and done more damage. Seems the latter would have been much easier to sneak into the theatre than the arsenal he had.

This is, of course, another request for the government to further protect the people from themselves — and for that government to gain even more control over its citizenry.

While I find the horror of the Colorado shooting very disturbing and feel deeply for the families of those with wounded or lost loved ones, I also found a deep irony in the media coverage. Within 24 hours we knew the names, backgrounds and hopes of those killed in this awful tragedy. Yet what about the thousands of servicemen and women whose lives have been needlessly lost in our wars of convenience since 2001? They barely get a mention in the daily news.

It's as if that's just a part of the American psyche now: continuous war and continuous death, and the lives of those soldiers mean nothing. They die so that we may go on with our lives — at least, that's what our red white and blue Congress says, right? Don't our soldiers deserve the same?

Apparently not, because the ones who come home wounded end up fighting the system for jobs, etc. Are their lives of so little importance? I think we should ask ourselves where the morality lies in that story of underreported deaths in undeclared wars.